Come Closer (3 page)
“Tracy. But it wasn’t Tracy It was Pansy.”
Ed sighed. “So it was Pansy,” he said.
“Oh, forget it.”
Edward put the paper down and reached across the table for my hand, which I reluctantly gave to him.
“Alex and Sophia said we could use their beach house the last weekend in September. You want to go?”
“Sure.”
Alex and Sophia were old friends of Ed’s. A few times a year they gave us the keys to their beach house outside the city.
“We both need to relax,” Ed said.
There was no more talk of Pansy or nightmares for the rest of the morning. Maybe Ed was right, I thought: Pansy never had pointy teeth, and I never saw her naked. Naamah had bigger eyes. Pansy was shorter. But as the day went on and their faces came in and out of my mind I was sure the two women were one and the same. Naamah could have been Pansy, only a few years older. Pansy could have been Naamah, dressed and made up for a costume party.
And besides, I was pleased with the dream, in a way. To see Pansy again was like a visit from an old friend. I was irked with Edward but I quickly got over it. He was right, after all. I was stressed, and we did need to relax. Somehow that explained away the strange dreams—stress. As for what I had seen on the street that day when I was nine, I told myself Ed was right. It must have been Tracy after all.
WE COULD devote our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental. But most of us don’t, and I didn’t either.
O
N THE WHOLE, ED and I were happy—with each other, with the loft, with our careers. He worked in the financial department of a large women’s wear corporation, I was an architect at a small firm, and we did quite well. We didn’t lack anything. We loved each other, and it wasn’t yet clear that the phase of fighting we were in had become a trend.
N THE WHOLE, ED and I were happy—with each other, with the loft, with our careers. He worked in the financial department of a large women’s wear corporation, I was an architect at a small firm, and we did quite well. We didn’t lack anything. We loved each other, and it wasn’t yet clear that the phase of fighting we were in had become a trend.
I was twenty-eight when I met Edward. I felt lucky to have found him. He was a man you could trust, a big-boned healthy blond. No skeletons in his closet. A large family of not-too-observant Catholics. All of his obvious and possibly problematic neuroses (mostly descended from growing up as a middle child, I thought, never receiving enough attention) were channeled into a desire for success, which I found appealing. He didn’t like sports or late night television, two big pluses. He had a good mind for details, a good memory, and a determination to follow through on his word: If he said he was going to call at three, he called at three. No surprises. That pretty much summed up Ed—no surprises. So when, after going out for two years, Ed said he wanted us to move in together, and if all went well, marry a year or two after that, I knew he meant what he said. I had been living in a little one bedroom downtown for three years. My apartment was cute and had its own charm, but it wasn’t big enough for two. So I moved into Ed’s place, a one bedroom in a modern apartment building near my office. Ed’s place was a bit sterile, it had terrible cream-colored wall-to-wall carpeting and too much laminated furniture, but if all went well we planned to buy our own place within a few years.
Two years after we’d moved in together, we got married in a small private ceremony at city hall. It was either that or a huge blowout, which we both thought was a little tacky—Edward had five brothers and sisters and dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, plus there were our friends, business associates, on and on. Rather than inviting them all, we invited no one. We went to city hall in the morning, got married, and went out to lunch at our favorite dim sum house with some friends afterwards. Soon after that we started looking for a home to buy, and found the loft.
OF COURSE, our life together wasn’t always perfect. All couples argue and we were no different. There were a few things about Ed, small things, that drove me crazy. For instance he was almost compulsively neat—a scrap of paper on the coffee table for longer than a day or two would upset him. He was also given to a rigidity that could be slightly repulsive, like an elderly English bachelor—if there was no thin-sliced white bread for toast in the morning he could be thrown into a mood for hours. And he didn’t take any deviation from a plan well—he wasn’t one for getting lost in the countryside, or for long, aimless walks around the city. And the fact that when Ed chewed gum he would swallow it instead of spitting it out... for some indefinable reason that revolted me no end. And the toast, and the toothpaste cap that absolutely must be replaced immediately, and the shirts that had to be folded just so, and all the other little routines that had to be followed every day. Over six years, though, I had become accustomed to a certain amount of irritation, as I’m sure all spouses do, and these were small arguments and disappointments that didn’t interrupt the steady flow of our marriage. When we started to argue a bit more than usual, when Ed’s habits and rituals began to irritate me a bit more often, I was sure that it would pass.
SHE WAS subtle at first. It wasn’t like everything went wrong all at once. Suppose you’re looking at a bottle of whiskey. And one part of you says, Gee, I’d really like a sip of that whiskey.
Then another part pipes in and says, Well, you shouldn’t, you have to drive home, and you know whiskey’s very fattening. And then a third part says, Just drink it. This mental voice is new, it’s a sound you’re not accustomed to hearing in your own head, but it’s not that different either, it’s done a good job of imitating your own silent voice and you like what it’s saying. Come on. Don’t stop. Don’t think. It’ll be fun. Just drink it. Now.
You wouldn’t guess that the third part wasn’t you. You’d probably just drink the whiskey.
IN MARCH I started smoking again, which gave us more to fight about. I had quit when I first moved in with Ed. He said he was allergic to smoke. I thought he just never learned to appreciate the sharp bitter smell, like a smouldering fireplace, of a burning cigarette. But I knew it was for the best, and privately I was a little ashamed of myself for violating my body day in and day out. So I quit. Living in the new apartment helped. No ashtrays. No Formica kitchen table where I would sit and talk on the phone, cigarette in hand. A new apartment, a new life, new habits. I had a few sessions with an acupuncturist and it wasn’t too hard, just sad, like an old friend moving out of town.
I started smoking again on a gray, drizzling Monday. I was on my lunch hour, eating a sandwich at a little coffee shop near my office. I had a newspaper open in front of me but I wasn’t reading. Instead, I eavesdropped on the couple next to me. She was about my age, maybe a little younger, and had blonde hair pulled back into a knot. He was much older and looked out of place, more accustomed to the kind of restaurant that had a wine list and a maitre d’. They talked about a trip to the Caribbean. When I stood up to leave my eyes caught hers. She gave me a sly little smile, almost a wink, and then lit a cigarette. The smoke rolled over the few inches to my table, and when the smell hit me I became weak. I watched the woman, her attention turned back to her partner, inhale deeply and then exhale, sending more of the woodsy smoke in my direction. She was clearly a longtime smoker; the cigarette fit into her hand, as natural and practical as a sixth digit. Like a starving woman looking at a steak, I wanted that cigarette. I imagined how easy it would be:
Excuse me, do you have another smoke? I’m sorry, can I bother you for a cigarette? Can I bum one of those? Do you have an extra? Give me one. Give it to me.
Excuse me, do you have another smoke? I’m sorry, can I bother you for a cigarette? Can I bum one of those? Do you have an extra? Give me one. Give it to me.
I left the café, planning to distract myself with the change in scenery. But outside, where the rain came down in a thin, steady drizzle, it seemed every person I passed had a cigarette in their hand, either lighting one or smoking one or putting one out. And the smokers looked so happy, so healthy so satisfied with their smoking. How is it, I asked myself, that all this time I’ve thought smoking was dirty and toxic? Look at these people—they’re glowing! The cigarette mottoes ran through my head. A thin woman in a black trenchcoat inhaled deeply from a long Waverly—The Smoker’s Choice. A fit, middle-aged man in a three-piece suit lit a Texas straight—The Tasteful Smoke. I tried the breathing exercises the acupuncturist had taught me but with each inhalation I brought in the crisp taste of burning tobacco. I walked back to the cobblestone block where my office was, hoping for relief. It was even worse. In each doorway a person lingered with a cigarette, embers glowing in each direction. Kensington—The Mild Cigarette. Fairfax—The Refreshing Taste. Embassy Means Smoking Enjoyment. Lowes Mean More Smoking Pleasure. I was almost at the office, and I knew that once inside the purified air I would be fine—but I had one more hurdle to jump. In the doorway of the building was a small, pale woman with long black hair in a tight black dress. She was smoking a Midwood Medium, my favorite. The Satisfying Smoke.
I stood in front of the woman with the black hair. It would be so easy to ask—but no, I wouldn’t. I opened my mouth to say
Excuse me,
so I could press my way into the safety of my office. But when I opened my mouth and set my lips and tongue into motion, I found they were not my own at all. In my mind I made the x of
excuse me
at the top of my throat, but my the tip of my tongue instead reached to the bony part of my upper palate to say, “Do you have another smoke?”
Excuse me,
so I could press my way into the safety of my office. But when I opened my mouth and set my lips and tongue into motion, I found they were not my own at all. In my mind I made the x of
excuse me
at the top of my throat, but my the tip of my tongue instead reached to the bony part of my upper palate to say, “Do you have another smoke?”
“Sure,” said the woman with a smile. She reached into her purse for the pack and a book of matches, shook out a cigarette and held it out to me.
And so I started smoking again. I tried to convince myself with a circle of assumptions; I had asked for a cigarette, so I must have wanted a cigarette. Lack of willpower. My subconscious desires had overridden my superego. I circled around and around for a week before I just accepted the fact I was smoking again, and I would have to live with it or go through another long withdrawal. And Edward would have to live with it, too.
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